Your debts and collections will remain on your credit report. Most items ranging from bankruptcies to collections will remain on your credit report for 7 years. It impacts different credit scores differently as well. For example, if you are looking at your FICO score, then the age of the bad debt or collections account will have less impact the older it is, compared to other credit scores who do not take that into account. Bankruptcies can vary as well, where Chapter 10 remains for 7 years, Chapter 7 will remain on your credit report for 10 years.
Via mail by sending a request form. Download and print an annual credit report request form from AnnualCreditReport.com. You'll need to have Adobe viewer or another PDF reader installed on your computer in order to view and print the form. Once you've completed the form, you should mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service
If you use the second method — and this if the first time you rehabilitated the student loan — the default associated with the loan will also be removed from your credit reports. Although the late payments associated with the loan will remain for up to seven years from the date of your first late payment, having the default removed could help your score.
There is only one place to get your free, federally mandated credit reports, also called an "educational credit report," which this is AnnualCreditReport.com. You are allowed a free credit report from the three major consumer reporting agencies in the U.S." Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. These sites also offer credit reports, but you have to pay for them. When you go to AnnualCreditReport.com, you are given the option to get all three reports at once or one at a time. Choose to get all three reports at once. Gerri Detweiler, author of the book Stop Debt Collectors, explains that when you apply for a loan you probably won't know which report a lender will use. So if there is a mistake on one, you'll want to know.
Only one website is authorized to fill orders for the free annual credit report you are entitled to under law — annualcreditreport.com. Other websites that claim to offer “free credit reports,” “free credit scores,” or “free credit monitoring” are not part of the legally mandated free annual credit report program. In some cases, the “free” product comes with strings attached. For example, some sites sign you up for a supposedly “free” service that converts to one you have to pay for after a trial period. If you don’t cancel during the trial period, you may be unwittingly agreeing to let the company start charging fees to your credit card.